Something Is Rotten

January 16, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     Hamlet has just seen a ghost and his two friends are worried when Hamlet leaves them to go offstage for a chat with the ghost. As they follow him, trying to overhear the conversation, Marcellus makes that unforgettable remark which sets the stage for the drama to unfold. He says to Horatio, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

     We do not know when the book of Exodus was first written in the form we have it today, but some scholars think that it was in the time of King Solomon. His father had created an empire, but Solomon created bureaucracy and aristocracy. According to the traditional history, Solomon went around the old system of judges and tribes -- the loose confederation and easy-going independence of small farmers and local governments was suddenly overturned. Solomon's empire-building required a more efficient way to collect taxes and a constant conscription of men for soldiering and public works. The people contributed money and toil willingly to construct the Temple, but they were less willing when it came to building palaces for Solomon's many wives and temples in Jerusalem for their foreign gods.

     The author of Exodus realized that this system under Solomon was something rotten in the state of Israel. But he could not speak of it directly, lest his head be removed from his body -- and everyone knows that it is difficult to keep on writing when your head no longer speaks to your hands. Why not set the story in the old days? Why speak of forced labor in Israel when you could set the scene in Egypt? Why speak of Solomon when you could as easily speak of some unnamed Pharaoh? The theme is the same: God does not desire us to be slaves in bondage to any government, even to the government of the son of King David. God intends us to be free to worship God, free to be bound only to God. Salvation is the cessation of forced labor; and the only legitimate taxation is the bringing of sacrifice to God.

     These are the great themes of Exodus and many scholars feel that these are the themes penned by the priests of the Israelites who were disillusioned with the way Solomon ruled and the foreign influences that Solomon imported. If this is the way the book of Exodus came to be, it immediately struck a brilliant chord with the both the priests and the average Israelites. They could discuss the slavery in Egypt, they could wish plagues on the house of Pharaoh, they could hope for a moment of redemption -- a crossing of the sea of difficulties, and they could wish for a lawgiver who would only require the kind of behaviors that any Israelite could afford. They could do all this and never mention the name of Solomon, but they would know all along about whom they were really speaking.

     We do not always speak directly about what we feel, even what we know to be true. We are not always as direct as Marcellus, not always ready to declare, "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark." But we can learn a great truth from this scholarly idea of how the book of Exodus came to be.

     One time, a husband and wife noticed that a sapling had worked its way through their living room floor. Neither one mentioned it to the other because they would have felt foolish. They had never heard of a tree growing in a living room. Time passed. The tree grew taller and wider and became a nuisance. Leaves were shed all over the living room rug. Insects burrowed in the bark of the tree and squirrels clambered through the upper branches. The living room rug was always a mess, despite the hours that the wife spent cleaning it. Still, neither spouse mentioned the tree for who had ever heard of a tree taking over someone's living room?

     Now, the tree grew so large that they had to make detours around it, ducking under the branches to get by. As the tree trunk spread closer to the walls, the husband had to hold in his stomach to get by it and wife had more and more to stoop in order to clean the rug. But neither had ever heard of a tree in the living room so neither mentioned it.

     One day, the man could barely pass the tree, even by holding in his stomach and the woman was tired of accidentally forgetting to stoop and constantly bumping her head against a low-hanging branch. The man declared that there was a tree growing through the living room floor. The woman said that she, too, had noticed it. They both shared the news that they were not happy.

     The next day, they had the tree removed, and they were overjoyed. And, ever after, when they noticed that a tree had started to grow through the living room floor, they had it removed before it became a nuisance.

     Now if you think I am preaching about a tree, you are not listening very carefully. I am preaching about you and your family. All too often a tree grows up in the middle of your living room, some problem arises in your family and you try every device to get around speaking about it. It may be sapping the strength of your family, undermining your relationship with your spouse or your children or your parents or your in-laws, but no one mentions it because there is a sense that it may go away if no one says a word. My message is that it never goes away if it is ignored. It grows larger and larger and threatens to engulf you. On the other hand, speaking about it out loud may cause everyone to recognize it and you could find a way to deal with it.

     This was the hope of the book of Exodus. If we admit our problems, we may find solutions. God may even help. After all, as Jews, we share our belief that God is the unity behind all things. We can reunite if we can seek a way to find the God in one another. So go and do what the book of Exodus did. Don't stand around saying, "Something is rotten in the state of my family." But speak about your problem. Solutions can be found, trees can be removed, health can be restored. In all this, we can certainly agree that "Honesty is the best policy." And let us say: Amen.